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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

A few months ago I got super committed to KNITTING WITH MY STASH YARN, and I pulled out a bunch of old yarn and matched it to patterns in my Ravelry queue. You know, like you do after completing a big design and craving the simplicity of just following someone else's pattern for a bit.

I'm one of those knitters who enjoys picking out yarn, and enjoys knitting, and enjoys wearing their finished hand knits. Those are all pretty common attributes of "the knitter."

But I'm also one of those knitters who hates having a stash of yarn sitting around, taking up room, just being yarn. I'd rather have socks, or a scarf, or a hat, than yarn. Maybe this is because I live in a one bedroom apartment, so my yarn has to live tucked away, taking up valuable space that could be used for something else, like old tax returns or VHS tapes or something.

Now I've used the word "yarn" so much it's lost all meaning.

ANYway, I got really excited about this using-up-of-yarn for a minute, until I was distracted by those Downton Abbey towels, and in that minute, I made this shawl.

I'm usually not so into shawls, but this one is more like a big scarf, less like a poncho.

I was pretty proud of myself in this picture.
Look! If you use the nails already in the wall, you can hang up your shawl!

The pattern is Springtime Bandit by Kate Osborn, and I made it just as written using a little less than two skeins of leftover Cascade 220 from my Beatnik sweater. I knit it while on vacation in Captiva Island, and I made one mistake in the lace. I accidentally did two extra YO's, which I later just stitched closed and wove in the ends. Such is life.

Thanks to Ravelry, I know that this yarn has been sitting around, just being yarn since the spring of 2011. So I'm pleased that it will now sit around as a shawl until December or so, when it cools down enough to wear this, or I go home to Michigan for Christmas. And yes, this is somehow better.

6 comments
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It's infinitely better! I've never made a shawl, but lately the idea of shawlette as scarf or giant shawl as afghan has been nagging at me. Obviously, it's a great, creative way to destash. Yours is so lovely.

It looks amazing!! I am trying to get my stash under control, but I find it really hard- hard to let them go and be re-homed, and harder still to find suitable projects. but I remember one time I had some yarn stashed, and then a new issue of knitty came out and I had the exact yarn and the amount needed for the project, and I was stoked! I keep hoping that will happen, over and over again...

See, I don't even have anything WORTH being re-homed! I have one or two skeins of each yarn (mostly one-skeins), and the yarns aren't really that special. Like, Cascade 220 has it's place, but no one is going to fall over themselves to buy it "used."

And that's amazing!! That's kind of what happened with this pattern! If only we should be so lucky again and again and again...